A satirical portrait of the people trying to win the presidency in 2012
Among them are: Cal Regan, a rising political star who takes over the president's 2012 re-election campaign after O’s veteran campaign chief is forced to resign because of an affair with a teenage prostitute; Maddy Cohan, a dazzling young journalist whose sharp reports for an upstart website are a frequent source of conversation among the political elite, and whose relationship with one of her sources could complicate her career; Walter LaFontaine, one of O’s earliest Chicago supporters, who despite being left behind when O went to Washington, yearns for a larger role in his hero’s re-election campaign; Tom “Terrific” Morrison, a one-term governor with a military background, who is emerging as the likely nominee and a formidable opponent. Privately derisive of O, Morrison seeks to run a classic change campaign similar to O’s historic march to victory in 2008; Allen Knowles, a wealthy Silicon Valley campaign donor who gives Cal Regan secret information which could be damaging to Morrison’s campaign.
Meanwhile, O is chafing under the demands of the presidency. His senior aides are running him too hard and, to his irritation, have advised him not to play golf on the weekends. To win re-election, he realizes he may have to adopt political methods he had once denounced.
President Obama is fast becoming the most written-about (modern-day) president. Following on in a new sub-genre, we get O: A Presidential Novel (henceforth, O:APN) – an anonymously-penned fictionalisation of Obama’s campaign for re-election in the upcoming 2012 presidential election. Filled with insider detail, and satirical jabs at Washington culture and many familiar faces from the Obama White House (all given different names, of course), O:APN is a novel of mixed strengths and weaknesses.
